


Passing

by ladyofsorrows



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Africa by Toto, Aged-Up Character(s), Canon Compliant, Drinking, Eddie isn’t happy, Future Fic, Gen, Kinda, M/M, Memories, Memory Loss, Mentioned Losers Club (IT), No Plot/Plotless, Ramblings, Spoilers-ish, slow, these tags are a mess, very minor ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 01:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13423437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofsorrows/pseuds/ladyofsorrows
Summary: Eddie left Derry and his mother, tried to build himself an independent life and then fell under the thumb of yet another, his wife.Myra is out for the night and Eddie wonders why he can’t remember the last time he really, truly smiled.Or how an older Eddie tries to remember a past made to be forgotten.





	Passing

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there!  
> This is my first fic for this fandom, and was written more as a ramble. I didn’t plan on in becoming a fic but here we are I guess, and I’m pretty proud.   
> I hope you enjoy, anyway!

Eddie sighed, sipping idly at the small glass between his fingers, back hunched at an awkward angle over the breakfast bar in his and Myra’s shared New York home, a single light swinging precariously above him, casting its light into his dark brown beverage, the glass allowing a kaleidoscope of colour to wash the marble bench as he tapped his spare fingers against the same marble. 

His wife, Myra had gone out for the evening, apparently her very important friends had requested her personally at a house party down the avenue, he didn’t particularly care for the specifics. Myra did what she wanted, Eddie did what she wanted and both of them were happy. 

Happy. He smiled grimly at the word, taking another sip of his bitter drink, a cheap whiskey. The only bottle he could hide from his wife. She found the rest and cried about it for hours, telling Eddie he was betraying her and her trust. Eventually he cracked and stopped bringing in anything alcoholic. Of course this bottle was already in the back of his dresser, so technically he was doing her a favour drinking it. She wouldn’t get a predicted heart attack and scream at him again and he got his drink. 

Marriage was all about compromise, he decided with an expression as bitter as his drink.

Eddies watch gave a shuttering beep that made him jump, glaring at the offending object with a sneer, he ripped it from his wrist and pegged it as far away as he could, only vaguely registering its clatter into a stack of tapes sitting by the TV set in the next room. He needed to take his pills, that’s what that beep meant. He was so familiar with it now, the way it governed his life. 

He decided, with another long drought, that he’d take his pills later, too lazy to even move and snorted at what Myra would say looking at him now, hunched back and dark eyes, alcohol in his fist. 

She’d scream, he reckoned, cover her mouth with a chubby, manicured hand before pointing her other at him and shouting about throwing the drink down the sink and something about a lack of trust and about new pills to help his addiction, maybe a line about slouching and bad backs thrown into the rant somewhere. 

He purposefully slouched more, downing the rest of the drink with a purposeless glare at the door across the foyer, as if Myra would walk in right then and see his one true display of defiance. 

She didn’t, and he felt defeated. 

He wondered lazily if he’d ever been defiant, ever stood up to his mother back when he was young, he doubted it, he was always a fucking coward. 

And yet, in the back of his mind he can’t help but see himself young, baby face covered in some kind of mud as he screamed something, his eyes such a violent blaze that Eddie was surprised he didn’t catch fire just picturing the younger boy. 

As his only slightly blurry mind began to try and piece together such a strange memory he realised how little he remembers about his old town of Derry. He remembers it was a pretty bleak shithole, but after that..

What else?

Eddie gave his head a solemn scratch. He remembers his mother, overbearing and cranky and yet somehow loving. He remembers the school, getting bullied.. he remembers dumping his books in a bin, eyes shining as he watches the discarded learning tools fall out of his life. He remembers colourful shirts and red hair. A raincoat. Why does he remember a raincoat? 

With a soft groan he stood up to get himself another glass of whiskey, mumbling in defeat as he found the bottle almost empty. As soon as his lips touched the rim of his glass yet again he remembers a smile. Toothy, shit eating and very beautiful. 

The very picture of it made his heart pinch and his glass holding hand falter slightly. It was a smile brighter than any he’d seen in his terribly bland life. The very thought of it made him long for his puffer but it was upstairs and he didn’t have it in him to retrieve it. 

Eddie bit his tongue, downing the rest of his glass dramatically before he placed it in the sink and washed it thoroughly, hands then sealing the last glass worth of whiskey and placing it on the counter. He’d take it upstairs when he went to bed, or if he heard the telltale jingle of Myra’s keys as she bustled into the house. 

He shuffled into the living room and settled down into the armchair tucked into the corner, feeling an awful lot like his mother when she’d spend hours at a time lodged between the arms of her chair as she watched his friends scathingly as they left her house. 

He perked up, glaring into nothing with a look of confusion. He had friends? Yes, of course he did, he remembers biking down the streets with his friends. He was hazy on the numbers, but somehow he knew there was more than a few people he trusted with his life. 

A peculiar way to think, he decided absently, that he’d trust with his life before anything else, not as peculiar as his faltering memory and yet, he couldn’t shake a sudden feeling of danger, a feeling that maybe he was being watched or.. something. 

He fidgeted before reaching for the blinds, ready to peek out and see if there was some kind of monster watching him but stopped himself with a disbelieving snort, “calm down, Kaspbrak..”

Trying to occupy his sloshy brain, he leaned forward to click the small on button on the front of the radio perched precariously on top of a stout and grossly matching end table, a disgusting doily underneath it. Eddie had to fight to get this radio to stay in the lounge room and he was proud he did. One victory among so many failures. He wished suddenly that he had bought the nearly empty bottle of whiskey into the room with him but would do without as the radio buzzed to life. 

Delicate fingers began to adjust the channel before falling on a familiar beat, eyes widening as the static settled and his once quiet home lit up with the beginning verse of Africa by Toto, an eighties classic and a song he remembered fondly among so many broken and unsure slices of information. 

He remembered hating this song when he first heard it, and smiled fondly, if not a little confused. He loved this song with all his being, how did he hate it. As he closed his eyes, verse carrying into the first chorus he suddenly realised that maybe he didn’t love the song all that much at all. 

Maybe someone made him like it. 

Soft and careful hands were held between calloused and abused ones, fingers rubbing against fingers as Eddie remembers this song being played in the small space of his childhood room. He remembers a laugh, like an angels song as he reluctantly let himself be pulled to his feet. That smile. 

That smile was so bright it almost diminished his anger. 

“I hate this fucking song! Change it!”

“No can do, Kaspbrak.”

He remembers shouting someone’s name, a wrestle to the floor and that godly laugh, his own following with a string of curses. He remembers eyes that burned right into his own, eyes so vividly engraved into his memory. 

Those eyes suddenly unlocked the door to so many more scraps of memory that Eddie had to bite his lip. 

Eyes flashed challengingly as their wearer threw themselves into the quarry below, eyes sparkled with life as Eddie insulted their owner, eyes apologetic and commanding as Eddie feels a shock of pain in his arm. 

Eyes telling him he was sorry. 

Eddie gave a small hum, sitting up in his chair to give his right up a twist, feeling the way it clicked uncomfortably. That’s right.. he broke his arm.. there were two, or was it three, screws buried in the flesh to keep his arm sturdy. 

He remembers the calloused fingers and those soft eyes, they held his face, his arm as he screamed. A scream of more than pain. 

Eddie remembers a fear. 

“Look at me-“

“Eddie! Look-“

He gasped sharply, feeling the pull of a headache in his skull, letting go of those strands of thought as the memory fades almost instantly. 

He gave a little whine, suddenly extremely unhappy with himself. 

Why couldn’t he remember his childhood! His friends! Those beautiful eyes! 

He couldn’t put anything together, none of the shreds really fit and he was left with flashes of a childhood he couldn’t even decide was happy or not. 

He bit his lip again, harder this time so the metallic tang of blood filled his senses. Usually he’d be adverse to blood, disgusted actually, but right now he knew he’d done worse. 

Eddie realised that he never had a childhood, it was as if he started on this planet as the adult he was and it made his eyes sting and his lip quiver just slightly. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he smiled a big genuine smile. The kind that split his face across the middle and lifted all his features and reached his eyes and made them glow. The kind accompanied by a soft laugh of surprise or endearment. 

He saw a flash of light flutter through the blinds and stood up warily, taking a peek only to find Myra walking up the path to their house, her fairly large form swaying with no doubt intoxication that she would lie about later. 

As if he’d done it before, which he would always deny, Eddie speed walked into the kitchen to grab his alcohol, feet carrying him into the dark upstairs where he jammed the glass receptacle into its hiding place. 

He then moved into the bathroom to use some mouthwash before almost barrelling down the stairs to see the door opening just as he settled against the counter. 

Myra smiled at him brightly, all perfect teeth, “Eddiebear! I’m home! Did you miss me?”

He gave a halfhearted nod, knowing she’d be too drunk to tell the difference as she flittered past him, lips grazing his cheek in passing. 

“Did you take your pills?”

Ah shit. 

With little grace Eddie waited for her to disappear into the kitchen before he took his watch from under some fallen tapes and strapped it to his wrist. 

It felt less like a watch and more like a shackle, restraining him. 

With a melodramatic yawn, Eddie joined her before shaking a head, “No sorry I fell asleep and didn’t take them on time..”

Myra gave him a look that said what he already knew. That she was disappointed and blah blah blah. He’d heard it before. It was white noise. 

“I’ll take them now,” he offered to placate her. She nodded warily, offering the already collected pills out to him. 

He took them like a robot, without expression or emotion. Myra didn’t seem to mind. 

“Eddiebear you need to take care of yourself..” she scolded condescendingly, “you don’t want to get sick, do you?”

He pressed well versed teeth into the same mark inside his lip again, shaking his head as he had so many times before. 

“Good boy, who knows how many germs you came into contact with today..”

Eddie had been getting better with his hypochondria, he really had been, but his marriage to Myra had made it three times as bad as it once was to a point that a couple of weeks prior she could mention a single germ and he’d do whatever she said to avoid it. 

Now, he decided it was almost funny, he didn’t really care. 

“Time for bed,” Myra decided, grabbing Eddie by the hand and flicking off all the lights. He followed her unquestioningly. He always did.

As they settled into the double bed, a quickly snoring Myra trapping his arm under her back, Eddie found another memory, uninvited, spring forth. 

It was a promise, a belief and the press of a blade. He remembers a small but sharp sting and a sudden fire igniting inside of him, seven friends together. He remembers fear replaced with a determination and he remembers that one day, he said he’d go back to Derry. 

He just can’t recall why. 

Halfway to sleep he still can’t remember the last time he smiled and it makes him frown, perhaps it wasn’t a moment worth remembering, perhaps he was right in thinking he really had no childhood and, really, no happiness. 

But then again, maybe it wasn’t just one smile..

Maybe it was, as his now fluttering memory began to supply, everything. 

A nickname, a nightmare, an adventure, a mission, a game, a water fight, a mystery, a girl, some boys, losers and lovers. 

Maybe it was everything and he just had to wait, maybe one day he’d remember it. 

Maybe one day he’d remember his friends, their laughter, maybe one day he’d remember Richie Toziers eyes. 

Eddie fell into a deep and vivid dream, flashes of a world he’d forgotten drowning out the dull life he led as an adult. 

When he woke up to take a handful of pills, he remembered nothing, nothing except some whiskey, a smile and a song in vague passing.


End file.
